by Rex Wockner

[story filed July 02, 2006]

San Diego's new openly lesbian fire chief is trying to come to grips
with being a gay role model now.

"I'm kind of adjusting to it since this has all been finalized," Tracy
Jarman said in an interview.

Jarman was selected by Mayor Jerry Sanders June 20 and approved
unanimously by the City Council on June 26. She already was serving as
interim fire chief following the resignation of former Chief Jeff
Bowman.

Jarman initially turned down a request to be interviewed by the gay
media and, after changing her mind, she still answered "no" when
asked if it's "noteworthy" that the nation's eighth-largest city
selected an open lesbian as fire chief.

"I think it's really based on my leadership, my character, experience,
the knowledge I bring to the position," she said.

But then she paused.

"I think -- well, I don't know," she said. "I think for women and for
the gay community, it's a noteworthy event. But it's not what determined
that I'd be the fire chief."

Jarman said she's "kind of a private person" and has always kept her
personal and professional lives separate.

"My brothers and sisters do the same thing, so I think it's more the way
we were raised," she said.

But after being hired as a firefighter 22 years ago, Jarman nonetheless
started slowly coming out on the job.

"I think there were a few close friends early on that knew, that I
shared with, but really the rest of the department wasn't aware," she
said. "I think over time, as I was higher up in the organization, more
people knew, so I came out more at the senior-staff level."

For the past four or five years, Jarman has marched in the gay pride
parade with the police-and-fire contingent.

But she still knows only "a handful" of other gays and lesbians in the
San Diego Fire-Rescue Department.

"I'm sure there might be others," she said. "But that's everybody's
personal choice and I don't know everybody in the fire department. I
used to know a lot more people, but there's 1,200 people now."

The chief said her sexual orientation never once came up in the process
that led to her selection as the city's top firefighter.

"The conversations with the mayor were just wonderful," she said. "It
was: 'What are the issues in the department? What do we need to fix?'
... The issue of my personal life wasn't an issue, or the fact that I
was a woman."

When a reporter suggested that maybe she's "an example of the world the
gay movement has been trying to build, where it doesn't matter anymore,"
Jarman said: "That's what I'd like to think! Really, maybe we've arrived
to that point.

"The world that I'm in today is not the world that I was in 22 years
ago," she said. "And I have to say, I think the media has done a lot.
You know, the shows on TV, the movies that have come out -- almost every
one [of them] today has a gay character of some sort in it. I don't know
-- my younger nephews and nieces, it's not a big deal."

But even in the 1980s and '90s, Jarman said she didn't have any
gay-related troubles at the department.

"Never has been an issue. Not to my knowledge. Nothing that I was ever
aware of," she said.

And she's seen nothing but smiles since becoming chief.

"I have been overwhelmed by the support from the rank and file. It's
just been incredible," she said. "And there may be people out there that
aren't happy about it, but I certainly haven't heard that. I'm not
hearing those rumblings anywhere.

"I think it speaks more to my abilities and my proven track record of
what I've done for the department, that they're happy that I'm up at the
top of the organization," she said.

Jarman's journey began in 1982 when she slept on the steps of Balboa
Park's War Memorial Building for nine nights to maintain the 59th spot
in a long line for 60 new firefighter jobs.

These days, she lives with domestic partner Marcia Bonini and says she's
"fortunate that I'm in a fire department in a city that values cultural
diversity."

"My hat's off to the city of San Diego," she said. "They took this
[diversity] on a long time ago and we're fortunate that we live here,
and that we have that kind of opportunity."

Jarman hopes to make the department more diverse, despite budget cuts
that have left it with only one recruiter, who concentrates on
high-school career fairs.

"It's not just in the gay community," she said. "I think we need to do a
better job of recruiting across the board so that we reflect the
community. ... That's something I talked to Sanders about."

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